What will John Key’s legacy be?

John Keyâ€™s tenure as Prime Minister looks like it is coming to an end in the 2014 elections. Its time to start thinking about his legacy, and how he will be remembered by the New Zealand public.

1. Â What changes to New Zealand do you think John Key will be remembered for?

2. Â Has John Key actually been a strong leader or has he been blessed with an unbelievably inept opposition who have failed to call him to account for his election promises?

3. Â In twenty years time how do you think New Zealanders will look back at John Key?

4. Â Asset Sales will comprise less than 0.5% of New Zealandâ€™s GDP, and will do nothing to create a step change in our economy, so why has John Key staked so much of his political capital on something so insignificant?

5. Why do you think John Keyâ€™s ambition has been so limited?

6. Â Why do you think John Key has been so keen on giving hand outs to agriculture when nowhere in the world has got rich on agriculture in the last 80 years?

7. Why do you think John Key was so strategically stupid over the MMP referendum?

Iâ€™ll be publishing my answers to these questions in the next couple of weeks. Iâ€™ll also be asking political commentators and commenters on this blog to provide their answers. Commenters wanting their comments to be published should write sensible, to the point answers without rabbiting on about gay stuff or swearing.

One more term and then he’ll step aside.
National will either govern alone or form a coalition with NZ first.

Andrei

He’s a nice guy, people like him but he has no substance, there is no underlying philosophy to his leadership so it is business as usual for the nanny state advancers

Moaning Greasy Flyblow

Agreed. Pragmatic but gutless when it counts. Flashes his pecks when he knows he can get away with it, such as rolling his MPs. But put some half decent opposition in his way and he morphs into just another dithering polly

Apolonia

Key will be remembered as Labour’s best prime minister.
His legacy will one of lost opportunity
New Zealand is worse off than when he entered parliament.
He will be remembered for;
1) the anti-smacking law
2) gay marriage
3) a massive increase in government debt
4) encouraging racial division in NZ
5) erosion of sovereignty to the UN
6) an inability to stand up to public servants and the green teliban
7) ham-stringing the economy with regulation and the ETS
8) giving away the foreshore and seabed
9) selling assets giving 8% return to repay debt costing 3.5% dahh
10) being helun in trousers

Ronnie Chow

No No , Key , not Helen Clark .
!

Mr_Blobby

Would be more interested in his personal agenda. NZ is indeed worse off but I suspect that DonKey has done alright for himself.

http://twitter.com/AkulaUH J.M

I think he’ll be remembered for steering NZ through tough economic times, and we’ve done better than most. I give him a C+ thus far.
There have been more than a few failures in my view though, continued retention of interest free student loans, failing to address the sustainability of national super, continued stonewalling of Auckland’s CRL are but 3 of them.

StupidDisqus

I think he’ll be remembered for steering NZ through tough economic times, and we’ve done better than most.

Yep. straight onto the rocks, and if you haven’t noticed, we’re holed below the waterline, and stlll taking on debt and around a billion dollars a week…

Fair enough. So do you think that Shearer be game to cut a swathe through those welfare payments and reduce the need to borrow? What’s thje alternative for Key – he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.

StupidDisqus

This isn’t about alternatives to Key – although there are lots, see above.

It’s about the legacy – the polices not the people.

dotcom

Cannot agree one iota. This steering us through tough economic times, is not even recognised DURING the tough economic times, let alone 20 years later.

cows4me

1) You’ve got me

2) Has a nice smile

3) John who?

4) Perhaps he knows something we don’t, new technology.

5) He’s a closet lefty

6) Pigs arse

7) He’s a politician and they know best.

Sir Cullen’s Sidekick

Whale Oil – Good to see you finally agreeing with my predictions that Naked Emperor is toast and Sheep & his dim witted mates will rule NZ for the next foreseeable future.

With a second win under his belt and high popularity polling, he has missed a rare opportunity to boost NZ’s economy, do the many courageous things needed , overturn the madness of the Clark government era, seriously trim the bloated public service, seriously cut out the handout waste, get rid of the ridiculous quangos like the families commission, and give young people a vision of where NZ is going beyond 3 years so that they have a well argued reason not to leave for Australia.

StupidDisqus

give young people a vision of where NZ is going beyond 3 years so that they have a well argued reason not to leave for Australia

the idea that this is even possible – let alone desirable – is simply a basic misunderstanding of economics.

People – well peasants basically – will always leave backwards economics (agrarian, extraction) for more advanced economies (service). That’s what’s going on between NZ and Aus.

StupidDisqus

3. In twenty years time how do you think New Zealanders will look back at John Key?

As John Major to Hellen Klark’s Maggie – except on the left, of course.

StupidDisqus

3. In twenty years time how do you think New Zealanders will look back at John Key?

Squandering the biggest opportunity in 50 years to finally reform NZ.

When the financial crisis hit, Key should have chopped taxes really hard (he didn’t actually cut taxes at all, remember) and then cut public spending even harder. Say a 30% cut in the first year, with rolling 10% cuts thereafter. Across the board cuts to all state sector salaries (except cops and the army). Across the board cuts to all benefits – yes including super. Calling in all student loans – not continuing them! Ending WFF, DPB, EQC, ACC. Ending all state subsidies to education and health.

He had a absolute mandate to do what he and his caucus all agreed had to be done – and he did nothing. And by doing nothing, only made NZ’s situation so much worse. Key promised to make NZ a country where success and was rewarded – but all he did was continue to reward mediocrity and bludging. Why on earth Brash got a state house kid into National I’ve no idea; why National thought a state house kid could ever make a good PM, I’ve even less of an idea.

“All John Key does is Smile and Wave”

Yoni

Don’t write him off yet, the country has benefited from his professional leadership style.

dotcom

All very well, but he has killed off all his potential coalition partners, and it will be his downfall, unless he pulls a rabbit out to the hat. (There are rabbits by the way, that he can pull out of the hat, but I doubt he will have the wherewithal to pull them out.)

StupidDisqus

Professional? Let’s see: he hasn’t vomited over any visiting heads of state I guess.

What else? He looks good on Letterman. Planking. Gangnam Style. Professional.

fozzie2

His legacy ….when Mr ‘Smile and wave’ leaves – he will be remembered for nothing

Phar Lap

John Key will be remembered if people were honest with the facts.Goes without saying the last four years that John Key has been PM.Were the probably the worst period NZ has had to endure since it opened.Regardless of being right or wrong in that time as PM,can someone nominate who in the nation could have done a better job ,of survival.He must have done a lot of good as people are beating a path to our shores.Even Kiwis are coming home from the so called Lucky Country “AUSTRALIA.”.To cap it off ,when Johnny departs from being Leader of NZ,and his place is filled by a five headed monster,people will be saying bring back John Key,we didn’t realise that when you were here Johnnie ,we never had it so good.

StupidDisqus

Worse period since NZ opened? Worse than the Great Depression?

Hell, worse than 1984 & 1991 – when NZ pretty much nearly ceased to exist as a country and was days away from begging admittance to Australia under whatever terms they offered (1NZD=0.30AUD, nonvoting territory status, immediate end to all NZ armed forces, etc). Worse than that?

Now think what Roger – although a socialist – did to NZ in ’84.
Especially think what Ruth did in ’91 – and what she wanted to do.

What did the State House Kid and the Karori Farmer do? absolutely nothing

Phar Lap

Yes worse than all you mentioned.They were all self inflicted.,BY NZs.The world financial meltdown was external NZ had no control over it and still has none.Also the Thirty Billion Dollar ChristChurch Quake liability.We have been very fortunate to have JOHN KEY at the helm,a man for all seasons and reasons.Of course we could and probably will swap a good man like Key for a five headed economy wrecker anytime soon.Wonder what your comparison will be then.

StupidDisqus

WW1? WW2? Great Depression?

Whether something is “self-inflicted” or not doesn’t matter: how serious the problem is is what matters. In 1984, the country only survived on the credit card accounts of diplomats in overseas posts for fuck’s sake!

Every reform done by Ruth and Roger has been undone. Every one. NZ needs Ruth+Roger combined – and to finish the job properly! Any basically competent economist can tell you this.

And all John Key does is Simple and Wave.

dotcom

Oh, Phar Lap. You can’t be serious. Worst period NZ has had to endure ever. Even if we leave out the pioneering days of the 1800s, the 1900s left us dealing with the Great depression, two World Wars. Britain leaving NZ out in the cold on entering the EC. You really have no idea, Phar Lap.

Yes, the last 6 years have been testing. But .. reality check please.

ConwayCaptain

National need a new leader who will do the hard things. Key should resign by June and retire in Nov 2014.
He has said that he would not work with Winston so if he stayed that would mean a Labour Govt in 2014. If he goes the new leader can work with Winston and there would be a Nat/NZF coalition with enough majority to run over the Liebour.Greenies

dotcom

He will be remembered for his confirmation that NZ has condemned itself to a long period of mediocrity. MMP is especially to blame, but we had the last chance for a very long time to come, to recognise the mediocrity that MMP is inevitably going to deliver. Everything will be based on politicians trying to appease everyone, offending no-one; and hence doing basically nothing courageous, when sometimes courage has been called for, and courage makes great countries. [The USA love it or loath it, did not become the greatest nation in the world, through mediocrity. Nor did Rule Britannia.]

He also will surely be remembered for his (dare I use the term) flip-flops. Greatest one for me is “racial equality” in his promising to get rid of the Maori seats, but does anyone actually remember his offering this? For me, this is the greatest stab in the back that any politician has ever delivered me, in rendering me to second class citizen in my own country.

Then he promised to sell off some businesses (governments generally not being in the business of running businesses). Key will have failed to see these sales through, because he was afraid of telling Maori to get stuffed.

And yes, coastal thingy whatever it is that replaced “bedsore and shoresea”. And gay marriage (silence Dotcom!), and anti-family anti-smacking interference in our lives. All designed not to offend anyone and be loved by everyone. This, when wedge politics was called for, time and time again.

And finally, he will be remembered for the absolute idiocy and utterly suicidal behaviour of killing off all his coalition partners, leaving his own demise to be a dead certainty. Blunt stubbornness, or blind stupidity. He will have confirmed for all time, that we will never have a one-party government for decades to come, and that leaders must work WITH this reality, not against it.

Bye John. Yes, I too found many things to love about you. But more to dislike, because I have brains, and along with the entire country, you have tried to dumb me down. You have dumbed us all down, and in doing this, you have dumbed the country down.

John Key, for mediocritising New Zealand, I do NOT thank you, but I also understand that MMP is the main culprit here.

Dotcom

dotcom

I forgot my biggest fear of all – how could I forget?. I predict that John Key will foist on us, the written constitution that we have told governments repeatedly that we do not want or need.

And it will contain a bastardised, Maori-friendly set of lies and principles from a long-dead Treaty, and will not even be a true translation of the Treaty which was actually signed in 1840 (as exemplified by the fraudulent translation already contained in the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975).

By a very long way, the John Key constitution will confirm for all time, that Maori are the tangata whenua, and that we whites (who made this country what it is) are the second-raters.

John Key’s constitution will be the Rhodesianisation (I just invented this word) of New Zealand. And NZ will be doomed, unless we act now: Â which it does not look like we are going to be bothered doing – as indicated by no-one mentioning it here, and by my almost forgetting to mention it as well.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Greg-Davis/624235869 Greg Davis

All true, and the alternatives are three times worse. The only proper Constitution would be one that respects property rights. We have gone so far from this ideal that it has become revolutionary, or ‘extreme’ to propose this. It would be a revolution having such a Constitution. Living standards for all would sky-rocket, in comparison to their decades-long stagnation.

You know what respecting property rights means? Why it is revolutionary? It requires the dismantling of the welfare state. And NO POLITICIAN CAN PROPOSE THIS because the system of MMP has guaranteed failure built-in.

Democracy itself is, by design, doomed.

The only true fix is for enough people in positions of influence – businesses, academics – discover laissez-faire capitalism.

Everyone here will be repeating these same complaints in fifty years’ time unless this is done.

dotcom

Greg, I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean by the constitutional property rights you talk of here, but I’m interested to hear more of what you are suggesting. [Sorry if you have done this on WOBH before, and I missed it.]

What revolutionary constitutional property rights are you suggesting exactly, that we don’t have in our informal “constitution” now? And is the current constitutional advisory panel considering property rights in their deliberations? (not that we actually know anything about what they are deliberating – must be the most expensive non-productive cups of tea in a very long time).

One example is to abolish the Resource Management Act. It is essentially communistic. Nobody owns property when regulations over-rule.

Taxation is an obvious ongoing theft. As are all government duties on fuel, food & drink.

The reserve bank should go, and banks would set their rates as the market prices signal. This works, central planning can not possibly work, and is why we have boom and bust cycles.

The great beast requires a course of slow starvation until it dies.

The ideal is that government gets itself OUT of economics and concentrates on its core legitimate functions.

Every dollar spent by government is money that could have gone into productive use.

And don’t listen to any politician who says the market doesn’t work. For example the housing market and whether, if left alone (laissez-faire), would it cure demand/supply issues? A truly free market would, because of the correct pricing signals to indicate where capital needs to be ‘allocated.’ By private companies, of course.

dotcom

So, in a nutshell, and returning to the original topic, not exactly part of what John Key is likely to be remembered for in 20 years time (or any time for that matter).

Any real reform must mean living standards for the 90%+ of kiwis who are basically nett bludgers or otherwise dependent on the state will collapse. If they don’t – it’s not real reform! They don’t deserve skyrocketing living standards and under any conservative system, they wouldn’t get anything.

Which part of “the rich man in has castle / the poor man at his gate” don’t you understand?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Greg-Davis/624235869 Greg Davis

It is a good idea. Good point – not all. Of course it doesn’t apply to scum who will not look after themselves. But the scum too would share in the reduced prices and cost of living brought about by greater productive investment. It follows logically they would need to find work. Same for most government workers.

steve and monique

Who was PM 20 years ago?,If you can remember,then Mr Key is a safe bet

dotcom

Sorry, no energy at all put into your comment. You forget the serious negatives he will be remembered for. And I apologise. I voted for him. Twice, I voted for him. Blame me.

steve and monique

Cant blame a bloke for decisions made on the information that was at hand.Foresight is always harder then hindsight.

unsol

I remember as who could ever forget Bolger giving RR & slash & burn Shipley a free reign….he really did leave a legacy…that was so bad we stuck with Uncle Helen for 9 years.

At least JK aint as bad as that

steve and monique

Got that right,he has done pretty good considering what has happened with world finances,and here with Christchurch.

GregM

John Key’s legacy?
Here was a man given a golden opportunity and a massive mandate to make a step change in the direction this country is headed.
What did he do about it? Fuckin nothing.
C-, Fail.

GregM

Thanks for the down votes, let me explain further.
John Key has been the best choice by far to get us through the shit since 08.
He has done a very good job, and small changes in law as Unsol lists below are very good and positive improvements no doubt about that, but he should have used it as a chance to really change things.
For example, why do we still have WFF ?

StupidDisqus

Why do we still have the DOLE, DPB, ACC, Super?

Ronnie Chow

John Key will be remembered as The Best Of The Worst.

Gee

Shearer will take comfort from all his potential followers commenting on this thread.

Phar Lap

Still haven’t heard or read a blog nominating,who would have run NZ better than John Key in the last FOUR YEARS.

Macca

I certainly wouldn’t be holding your breath on that one PL! The really sad thing is that the bulk of the negative comments on here towards JK have no real idea of the good that he has done as the MSM won’t inform Joe public and they are too fucken dumb to realize what a world of hurt JK has managed to guide us through! Could you imagine what sort of state we would be in had Liebour stayed in power? They’d still be arguing over the CHCH cathedral – they way that clown Jim is! Could you imagine that twat Cullen trying to run a negative growth economy – the main reason we have to borrow so much was because of that idiot – WFF and free student loans etc!

StupidDisqus

Could you imagine what sort of state we would be in had Liebour stayed in power?

Exactly the same. Can you name even three policies that have made any real difference to NZ under Klark? Of course not – there aren’t any. Key is Major to Klark’s Maggie.

unsol

With you there. But that is the way of the world – grass is always greener elsewhere, people seem incapable of taking stock of what they have now & they allow small negatives to override many positives such as:

The only polly I could imagine being any better would be Stephen Joyce – he comes across as tougher than key, but he is a bit of a bull in a china shop so wouldn’t imagine he could have survived more than 1 term. Same with Judith.

StupidDisqus

All the welfare changes… All the changes to CFYs

but there haven’t been any real changes whatsoever, and bludgers just keep on killing their kids…

fingers crosssed? Yeah Right! And how have National Standards actually changed anything? They Haven’t!.

bit of a bull in a china shop so wouldn’t imagine he could have survived more than 1 term

Ruth didn’t even had one term – she had just one budget. Just imagine what she would have done with even three budgets after 2008. NZ would be a very, very, different place.

unsol

I take it you didnt bother reading the link

Tax cuts – for the nett taxpayers that are part of the 13% (or earning more than $120k) who pay 76% of all taxes collected & benefits paid out….when the rates go down for each bracket it well & truly outweighs the teeny GST increase…..the top rate alone was 0.5% more so that is automatic savings right there.

National Standards – clearly you dont have kids.

Cullen – what’s the point in lowering the company tax rate when he continued to leave the loop holes open for tax avoidance wide open.

Ruth? I was talking about Steven Joyce…

StupidDisqus

But no one can stop bad people from continuing to reproduce

Of course we can: just end the dole, DPB & Accommodation “Supplement” & WFF benefits.

welfare – DPB, youth, WFF are all good steps in the right direction

are all tweaks round the edges, not bold reform, and won’t change anything.

Tax cuts being fiscally neutral

precisely.

National Standards – clearly you dont have kids.

Clearly I don’t send them to state schools! Have they changed the pernicious pervasive socialism of state schools? Not one bit! Have they changed what gets taught or how it gets taught? Nope. Have they broken the teacher unions? Nope!

Why introduce a bill permitting just two Charter schools – rather than just converting all state schools to charter status? It would have been less legislative work just to do the lot! A classic example of total lack of vision.

Ruth? I was talking about Steven Joyce…

Precisely.

unsol

You sound like 2nd Amendment….

And like most of the negative comments about key I suspect your expectations have always been unrealistic; a socially & morally responsible society would never leave every man for themselves. To do so is to set a standard that would never be able to be reached – perfection.

Further to suggest culling DPB is to demonstrate an ignorance about why it was in introduced in the first place – which was an escape for women in unpalatable relationships.

Most women who are on the dpb are not the ones we are quick to stereotype. They can be widows or women whose marriages have broken down (when I did policy work in this area I came across many cases of hubby going for a younger model leaving wife & 2-3 kids with no money & a mortgage to pay).

Re State schools – the same 10% of taxpayers funding all of society’s whims are also most likely to go private for health & education. We will but not at primary school level as I would much rather get something for our taxes, especially when that something is a top performing decile 10 school. Our private schools don’t perform any better at this level. High schools however are a completely different story.

Totally agree with your points there Unsol – and well said! I didn’t really see much point in bothering to reply to a sniveler like StupidDisqus – he obviously signs his own name before the Disqus!

Ask an idiot like him to name 5 policies introduced by Liebour that actually generated any form of income for the country during their five year dictatorship and you’ll be deafened by the silence – THERE ARE NONE!

The left are the people who can’t get their head around the fact that the tax cuts were only putting things back the way they were before Cullen raped them! I see the massive tax increases intended to save the country by the new French president are working well for him – but of course the left no little about that as our left media hide it from them and poison them with propaganda! That would also be the Cullen that increased taxes 22 time during his rein and increased the annual tax revenue from 50billion p/a to just over 90 in 9 years – yet still couldn’t bring himself to give the highest tax payers a break!! The same Cullen who paid 800 million for a nackered train set and then tried to tell everyone it is an asset – as Liebour and the Gweens still refer to it!

As a quick aside – I saw Shearer on Prime news tonight giving a bit of a pep speech as to how wonderful they are and slagging off National – but without any solutions or policy in sight! But then, why should we be surprised! With Numpties like StupidDiscus to vote for them – who needs policies!

unsol

Brilliantly said on all accounts….except maybe the 5 year reference…..the pain of my provisional tax payments (both amount & how they were spent…esp that biggest welfare package – that no one has any desire to wean themselves off – called WFF which works very well for many families & does nothing for the rest of us) tells me it was 9 long torturous years. Cullen was a smarmy prick who put academia ahead of basic common sense…..just like Uncle Helen who thought DHBs were a fab idea….

And yep, gotta love the slaggers who have nothing by way of facts & substance.

Worryingly too many people dont understand the repercussions if the Nats lose next year…..and posts dont like this dont help as who do they think will get in – Act? Conservatives? If the Nats cant govern it’s not like Liebour would pick up fundamentalists like Colin Craig!!! Imagine the raucous!

Macca

Totally agree again!
I’m hoping Collin Craig will be Nationals life line! Personally, I have no problem with him and his views and would be far happier seeing him hit the 5% thresh hold than Winston, I’ll drop my pants and go with whichever party offers me the biggest carrot, Peters!

Regarding the welfare system and student loans etc that Liebour used to blackmail their way in to power with, what really pisses me off is that the bulk of people must think JK and National are really thick! Do they really think National can’t see what a complete money pit these policies are? Could you imagine anyone in the National party coming up with the idea of buying back Kiwirail as Liebour did? They would have been laughed out of caucus and sent to an asylum!

National can see the crippling effects the above policies have on our country but obviously realize that to change them too dramatically would be their death knell! Keep up the great posts unsol!

unsol

I KNOW!!! What annoys me is that saying such things gets us called liberal & left wing yet the reality is in a democracy compromise is always a given. I would personally love taxes to be super low for basis emergency services at say a flat rate of 10% & everything else to be completely user pays – you want it, you work with it (I wonder how many people like Stupid D would actually be willing & ABLE to do that in real life – requires good income & good budgeting skills).

But that is never going to happen so being extreme of centre is always just going to leave you disappointed.

The Nats seem to be the best of all the compromises out there as for a start, they swing to the right enough to keep most right wingers happy, but being centrist they draw in the mass of swinging voters (who tend to be very socialist when it comes to social policy, but tend to also prefer right leaning economic policy) which means that they get to stay in govt.

It’s a win/win. I am an odds with Colin Craig with marriage equality, but if he dropped the whistle blowing comments & concentrated on letting us know what his version of fiscal & social policy would be then I would imagine I would probably agree with him. There are not too many conservative rich men that like our current welfare system!

So maybe he is the Nat’s golden ticket as while he may shout anti gay/marriage from the roof tops know, we all know that when you enter parliament political expediency comes into play so firm lines become very grey…..all views of any polly are always up for grabs as politics and integrity/keeping your word seem to be mutually exclusive! Which makes me wonder, how are these kinds of posts or anti CC ones beneficial – does WO and/or his army want to see Labour get in? As they say any publicity is good publicity so I dont understand why one would want to give opponents of the govt & CC oxygen (the latter being people like me…until he proves he’s more than a one trick pony at least anyway!).

All I hope is that somehow the masses ignore the BS that keeps flying at the govt from the left wing & just let the Nats continue as while tinkering may seem insignificant at first, continued & frequent tinkering leads to substantive changes in the long term.

The hard core right (not sure if there is such a thing in NZ since everyone has benefit from the public system so declare yourself as such is a little hypocritical) must realise that it takes ages to undo the damage of the 4th & 5th Labour govt….not to mention the damage under the hands of Shipley & Richardson.

StupidDisqus

Ruth.

idiot.

StupidDisqus

Brash.

Double Idiot.

StupidDisqus

Whale.

Tripple idiot. How may more names do you want?

blazer

because most sane people do not respond to an idiotic ,hypothetical premise that cannot be validated.

Mr_Blobby

Something nice to say for the NonKey legacy. Let me think about that for a while…………………………………………….. No nothing.

Riverfreeloader

As always, we bag someone without offering someone better in return. What would Helen, Shearer, Cunliffe, Joyce or anyone bloody else have done instead? What would they have left us. Compared to Helen, Key is a breath of fresh air and a lot more approachable.

StupidDisqus

Joyce – presumably just the same as Key. He’s making half the policies anyway.

Helen – exactly the same- and that is precisely the criticism.

blazer

he will never be accussed of being un american.Hope he enjoys his retirement there…did not have the resolve to really tackle the important issues.